precious literature......

ok, so i had a marvelous lunch at dudley's today with andrew......mostly filled him in on my reading list of late, and naturally focusing on the two novels i have read thus far by iris murdoch........i mentioned my too-soon-to-tell theory that iris has a denouement by death thing going....in that someone critical to the plot dies just before the end....leaving many unresolved issues for the characters she allowed to live......and i did share my furious reaction to the killing off of the meanmamma in the sacred and profane love machine.......which turned out to be a natural segue into a conversation that he had with a fellow student in his earlier german class......the student, who is a retired u.k. professor who has appeared on ket's bookclub on occasion was filling andrew in on the difference between what is said about kentucky authors onscreen versus after the filming is over......that so many of the critics find the tales of appalachia, and other mountain or horse oriented themes to be too precious to have faults worth bringing up......the notion of precious literature is intriguing, and certainly timely, given our bookclub's next installment, clay's quilt by silas house.......it seems to already have the precious aura about it....as if no one will be able to bring themselves to say they do not like the book, let alone find the prose lacking.......